Game Vision Statement

 "Game Vision Statement"

"Run Quest" is a first person running and obstacle dodging game for the PC and all mobile devices including IOS and Android. The players take the role of a hiker as he makes his way through different environments that all have different obstacles for the hiker to prove his ability and boost points to level up within the game. There is no end game, you level up play by play by achieving the necessary points attainable in that level.

Run Quest has taken inspiration from other games with a similar theme and game play. Temple Run and Subway Surfer and two games that fall in the same genre of Run Quest. Both "Temple Run" and "Subway Surfer" are 3D endless running video games. Another genre you could put these games in as, is platform games, what the "platform" in platform games means is that, it involves jumping between platforms or over obstacle, and the player controls the running and jumping with the goal to avoid their character from tripping or falling in the process. A platform game can also be known as a "jump "n" run". These types of games do extremely well especially on mobile gaming platforms where this type of game seems to be more fun to play on small screens as it enhances the gameplay experience and game quality of trying to fill a big screen with random design to fill up space. The market needs a game similar to the games listed above as the mobile games store is lacking diversity, so it's a perfect time in invest and develop a game like this right now in time, it would be a lose to not go ahead with this game as a new no new trends seem to have the growth and popularity as platform games right now. 

Gameplay:

Run Quest is a single player game where the player is avoiding the computer and the tasks its put in the players way. The player can choose from three different environments to start running in which all have different obstacles related to the theme chosen. When the character is running the player can use the arrow keys to go from left to right and up and down. To gain points the player can run through objects along the track that are also related to the location of the character. How the character look and move around the game environment will be basic there will not be a wide range of characters to choose from because it's not necessary and for my level of coding it does not seem attainable to complete within the short time period I have to finish the development of the game before gameplay is possible. Similar platform games have a variety of maps or locations to choose from, for me two to three is attainable. Although the design of the game alters the gameplay the majority of timi will be spent of the development of the game functions, moving, use of arrow keys etc.

Resources:

The resources required for the development of this game are very minimal, as this game is going to designed for function, not aesthetics. The only equipment needed for the game development process is my laptop, the HP Envy 360 13inch and the Unity gaming engine. "Unity" is a cross platform game engine founded in 2005, it has a great record for being a useful and effective program for game development. The other recourses needed for this game to be made are all free, them being my time, energy and effort. Those three combined will be the backbone of this project, along with a little bit of coding. If the national situation changes due to the pandemic and there is an easing of restrictions a great resource for the completion of this project would be the ability to go to the college campus and work with more experienced coders from other years and also lectures who have field experience and gain ideas and bounce things back and forward from one-an-other. 

Additional Links/Resources:

Below I'm going to leave links to different articles and websites that have helped me write and prepare for typing my vision document and that I think can be useful for everybody, hope these websites make this work easier and more understandable, when you understand why you need to create a vision document, writing it out will be a piece of cake. These can be applied to all aspects of creative genres such as music, art, graphic design and video, these principles can be applied as life tools to make projects more achievable. 

Link 1 is from gamescrye.com:   https://gamescrye.com/blog/why-your-game-needs-a-vision-statement/

Link 2 is from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/10/08/five-reasons-why-you-need-a-personal-vision-statement-and-how-to-write-one/

Link three is from juegostudios: https://www.juegostudio.com/blog/need-precise-game-design-document

Image Source: pxfuel

Hope you enjoyed reading this blog and it helped you in some way, shape or form, from writing this blog post I've learned more about the game development process, so I hope you learned something new from reading it too!!!.

Games MDA

 "Games MDA"

Each week I prepare myself for more reading, when that time comes around I tell myself I'm prepared, but I'm not, this is mainly because what I'm reading is new to me. Game design and development gets more in-depth each week, as I start to wrap my head around what we researched last week, my brain gets left hooked with more in-depth information about the next stage of developing a game. This week we had to read about "Games MDA", which stands for Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics. The two articles to read were both very long, so getting through them both took me a while, I find it hard to concentrate.

Both articles went very in depth into what Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics meant. One of the biggest things that was repeated through both articles and the provided YouTube video on the "cdmonline" site was that no of them work without the other, they all need each other to function, if not it's back to the drawing board and you will have to start from scratch. The video explained it very well, other than the mans voice was a bit hard to understand. He said that the mechanics will directly effect the games dynamic, which will in had play a part in the games aesthetic. In the video he made a point about horror games that sums up the whole message of the MDA frame. He said if the horror game is not scary enough, you can't directly create scariness by changing how the player feels during game play, you have to go back to the basis of the game and re-think how the mechanics are interlocked together with the dynamics and how that translates to the aesthetics, which will in had change how the player feels.

From the reading and watching this week, it made me start thinking about how I want the player to feel during game play because then I will now how to design the mechanics and dynamics to how the game should make you feel, which was a completely different approach to the one I was planning on taking, I was just going to jump straight in to how it worked without thinking about other factors and how they would effect the final product.   

Image Source: Gamasutra

I'm going to leave three links to websites that can help you understand the games MDA frame work, and just links that I find informative for the topic we are doing currently.

Link 1: https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LuizClaudioSilveiraDuarte/20150203/233487/Revisiting_the_MDA_framework.php

Link 2: https://medium.com/swlh/applying-the-mda-framework-for-video-game-design-to-productivity-8329115ce30f

Links 3: https://gamedevelopertips.com/mechanics-dynamics-aesthetics-game-design-theory-behind-games/